I bought a box of books at a yard sale in July. $8 for the entire box. They had some book club Ellery Queens, a bunch of A.A. Fair’s Donald Lam, and… a collection of Oz books. Most of them were in pretty scuffed up condition, but one of them, Ozma of Oz, was in pretty good shape.
And it was a first edition. And a first printing of the first edition.
And I sold it today for $600.
If you didn’t want it, why did you buy it?
I’m guessing he wanted the Lam-Cool books. I would have. I might have even wanted the Ellery Queens.
Yes, I have a similar story. A copy of Frederick was on display in a vintage shop, with a placard proclaiming it as a first edition. It had the Caldecott medal imprint in the jacket, and a copyright of 1971 on the title page.
I didn’t buy it.
Awesome find!
I am still waiting for the inevitable Happy Hollisters revival to make my collection worth enough to pay off the mortgage.
The whole box was on sale. I wanted the Ellery Queens.
Yay:Excellent find, Bricker! Happy for you!
This summer I bought a box of old VHS horror tapes for about $8. One of them turned out to be this super rare VHS about “real” ghost stories - “Beyond and Back” I think it was called - and I was able to sell it quickly for close to $200.
I am so envious! Why can’t I ever find stuff like that?
I have had a very few similar finds in the past, but most of my “finds” turn out to be almost-but-not-quite. I found a first edition of “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” once and it turned out to be the second or third PRINTING and apparently not nearly as much of a find as I briefly dreamed.
A good time of year to get some extra cash, too.
I know it’s none of my business what consenting adults get up to in the privacy of their own homes, but I just can’t understand the appeal of collecting first editions. I mean, I could understand the appeal of collecting cool old books. But the first printing of the first edition seems so arbitrary.
So add that to the very long list of things I don’t understand.
Congratulations, Bricker. Nice find.
Just out of curiosity, how often do you go to yard sales? I know I’ll never be posting a big yard sale find because I just don’t go to yard sales.
I got a new in box Yoshitomo Nara ceramic figurine at a garage sale for $5. I sold it for $500, and I probably could have gotten more if I’d been willing to hang on to it longer waiting for the right buyer. I love treasure hunting!
I posted here about my best find, a very rare early print by Peter Max that I bought for $200 and turned out to be worth about $10k.
Tons of things which are first of the first are collected by---------collectors. They quite often are limted in quantity, while later ones are mass produced. Thus supply is smaller.